Birthing the Betty Luminous Reflector - American Cinematographer - October 2025
- Andrew Acharon
- Oct 3
- 8 min read
Updated: Oct 14
Tools of the Trade
by Douglas Bankston
Behold, the utilitarian and gloriously effective reflector, which in grip nomenclature is also known as a bounce. Its task is simple: to cast light into difficult spaces or onto subjects (that might also be difficult), or to cast a quality of light into spaces or onto subjects. Sometimes it is both.
Fabrics, lamés, mirrors, foamcore, beadboard — really anything of any size that reflects light — can serve as a reflector. They have a tendency to reflect light indiscriminately, however, so if you place a flag here and a flag there, and then maybe put a frame of diffusion in front of it, the result is a wonderful light source. That is, until it needs to be repositioned 3' to the right and 1' higher. Anyone who’s wrestled with a reflector and its accoutrements knows it can become awkward.
Illya Friedman of Hot Rod Cameras has developed a reflector solution that excels at both utility and quality of light: the Betty Lights Luminous Reflectors.
A circuitous route led to the Betty Lights brand. Friedman, a former gaffer and cinematographer, was working for Dalsa on the launch of its Origin and Evolution cameras when the company’s Digital Cinema division abruptly folded in 2008, while he was on paternity leave. He needed a new income stream, fast. “I had to figure out how to feed my family,” he recalls. “Coincidentally, I had some inside information at the time that Panasonic was coming out with the first mirrorless camera thatshot a recognized format of high definition at 1920x1080p 23.976 [the micro-4/3-mount Lumix DMC-GH1, released in 2009]. I believed I could invent a PL-mount adapter that would allow me to put cinema lenses on it.”
Like a garage mechanic modifying cars, Friedman began hot-rodding DSLR cameras, launching a mirrorless DSLR movement in cinema production. Hot Rod Cameras was born. It has since grown from what Friedman described as “one room that looked like a slightly more organized version of Hoarders” into a full-fledged, one-stop, cinema-camera, lens and lighting shop in Burbank, California.
At one point, Friedman, ever the tinkerer, was asked if he could create an adapter to mount an Aputure B7c on a stand. The B7c is a wirelessly tunable, color LED with built-in battery in the form of a practical lightbulb that screws into Edison sockets. Friedman married a Baby pin to an Edison socket and called it the Eddy — his first lighting-related product. “It was a little weird having the Eddy under Hot Rod Cameras, because it wasn’t a camera part,” he says. “I wanted something easy to remember, so it became the Betty Eddy. I wish I had a better story as to where the Betty brand comes from, but that’s what it is.”
The idea for the Betty Lights Luminous Reflectors originated during the Covid-19 lockdown, when there was little production and not much else to do. One day, Friedman’s wife turned to him and asked, “What makes for beautiful lighting?” He began rattling off innumerable variables. She clarified, “What is it about a light when it hits someone’s face that makes it either flattering or unflattering?”
Friedman did not have an answer, and it turned out to be a very consequential question for him. He did have time, lights, modifiers and a mannequin head. “I set up my old Nikon with a 50mm lens, matched angle and footcandles, and took photo after photo of all these different lights and light treatments. I then made March Madness-style brackets, sending out six photos at a time in a side-by-side comparison to DPs and gaffers I knew without telling them what lighting was used; I asked them to choose which photos had the nicest light, shadows and falloff on the face. Winners would face winners until I got down to one that ruled them all. And that turned out to be thetraditional booklight.”
A booklight is indeed a super-soft, flattering source. It is created by shining a light into a reflector, and then that bounced light is directed through a panel of diffusion before washing over the subject. Viewing the setup from certain angles makes it look like an open book. Because it comprises three (and sometimes more) components, the booklight is unwieldy to move
“I couldn’t make a light that would do what a booklight does,” says Friedman, “but I could take all the qualities of a booklight and put them into that first reflector.” The key was the reflector coating. He contacted a number of engineers from his Dalsa days who had done custom work for NASA — “people with really big brains” — and after the requisite trial and error and testing for specularity, softness and quality of light, the resultant patent- pending panels not only reflect light but also diffuse it at the same time.
Visually, the coating is a matte finish that looks almost like 18-percent gray. It feels smooth, but microscopically, it is anything but; it’s actually a multilayered, amorphous surface coating incorporating reflective crystalline particles such as aluminum, silica and barite, and a cross-section of it at the microscopic level would resemble a mountain range with peaks measured in microns. It produces about 95-percent light reflectivity. Photons of light from the source hit the surface at a specific angle, and because of the multifaceted surface coating, those photons are refracted back at selected angles and intensities, causing Gaussian scatter, a diffusion of light. This light is both soft and directional at the same time. "The photons hit, combine and diverge, essentially scattering in about a 60-degree cone of light," Friedman says. (He agrees it’s accurate to label this a refracting reflector.) The coating also absorbs much of the infrared light to which digital camera sensors can be sensitive. “We made sure the reflected light is completely neutral, with a shift of less than 100 degrees Kelvin,” Friedman notes. For robustness, the coating is applied to both sides of steel plates — not aluminum. If the coating becomes damaged on one side, you just flip it around.
The Luminous Reflector comes in four versions. The Flux A4 is the size of a standard sheet of A4 paper, while the Flux 50 is a 50cm (19.7") square panel. Both can be linked with magnets and handles to create a larger light source and custom shapes, without tools. The Flux 4X is a kit of four Flux 50 panels, which can be used separately or mounted to a lightweight exoskeleton/yoke to create a large soft source of light; it packs down into a small
Pelican-style case and can scale up by linking multiple kits with quick-mount speedrail or truss clamps for support. The largest option is the Flux 100, a 1-square-meter panel on a frame with a removable yoke, featuring the same light quality and magnetic mounting system as all the other Betty panels.
Photons of light from the source hit the surface at a specific angle, and because of the multifaceted surface coating, those photons are refracted back at selected angles and intensities, causing Gaussian scatter, a diffusion of light.
Each size variation of Flux kit has its own transport case. The Flux 4X also includes a quick releasing, collapsible yoke; tool-free hardware; and a removable handle that enables you to carry it like a surfboard or shield. “My last gaffing job was an MTV series that was all shiny boards, and Ihave hated shiny boards with a passion ever since,” Friedman says. “They are heavy and super uncomfortable to carry. You have hot points and can’t see where you’re going. Though its plates are steel, the Flux 4X is actually lighter and easier to carry or handhold, or it can be broken down, moved and set back up with just two quick-releases. I also hit my head pretty good on a shiny board once, and they do not yield at all. I designed the Flux 4X to have a little bit of flex built into it.”
Because it is steel, magnetic arms that can hold different, smaller reflective surfaces such as mirrors can be attached to the surfaces to stylistically vary the light cast on the subject and background. Even small magnetic lights and tubes, colored or otherwise, can be stuck on them for highlight effects.
The Luminous Reflector Flux kits are finding their way onto productions. Adam Bricker, ASC employed one recently on a commercial. “We used the small Betty [Flux A4] travel kit on a tabletop food shoot,” he says. “Without it, I’d typically go with white bounce, though that can feel a bit too ambient, or silver, which can skew too harsh. The Betty lands in the perfect sweet spot. It reflects a unique quality of light — bright but matte at the same time — that I found really appealing. The neutral color kept the food tones accurate, and everything looked delicious. It’s incredibly well-built, versatile, and, honestly, just fun to work with."
In Portland, Oregon, cinematographer Jackson Cooper Gango recently used the Betty on the low-budget horror film The Grove. “Normally, for full-sun work, I’d break out a shiny board but have to diffuse it to help with the harshness,” he says. “With the Betty, I didn’t have to do that — I’d just find the sun and give it the right angle. There is something about its falloff that still has a hard-light feel, like putting a Fresnel lens on an open face. It’s a nicer wash and falloff.”
An additional benefit to the diffuse reflection is comfort for the talent. Even with 95-percent reflection of light, the source isn’t intense to the talent’s eye and doesn’t cause them to squint like they might when a white bounce or shiny board is used to bounce sunlight.
On exteriors, Gango used the Flux 4X on talent, and for close- ups, he added a Flux 50 as a kick or eyelight. “Probably my favorite moment for it was a clean, simple shot I use all the time: The character walks into a medium shot and into their key light as I do a push-in. We were looking up at the sky, so I had to watch the highlights."
"I couldn't make a light that would do what a booklight does, but I could take all the qualities of a booklight and put them into [a] reflector."
Another example he points to was a scene filmed entirely in the shade involving multiple characters convening in a circle. “I had not done a scene like that before, and I thought the Betty worked really well there. We had a Cineo Reflex R10 on the ground aimed up at the Betty at a 45-degree angle. We were in the forest, where it can be hard to move a lot of equipment around. We could just rotate the Betty and the light around, and it served as every character’s key throughout the coverage. The reflection in someone's eye is more versatile than you would get from an Ultrabounce. My gaffer would magnetically attach a little mirror kicker to give an extra 'twinkle' on our talent.”
Available for rental or purchase from Hot Rod Cameras, Betty Lights Luminous Reflector Flux kits are manufactured in the United States at the company’s satellite production facility in Portland, Oregon.
Visit hotrodcameras.com or call (323) 230-3589 to learn more.
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